social worker experience of fatal child abuse, an interpretative phenomenological analysis
TRANSCRIPT
Social Worker Experience of Fatal Child Abuse, An
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
Dr Lee W PollardSenior Lecturer in Social Work
Sheffield Hallam [email protected]
Origins....O Personal involvement, reflectionO CDRTO Advanced Course in Child Death Management:O A range of professionals including coroners,
paediatricians, paediatric registrars and perinatal pathologists gave detailed insights into their roles and responsibilities in relation to child deaths.
O I reflected upon how “clinical” and emotionally detached the medical practitioners appeared, and how their analysis of events contrasted sharply with the often emotive and deeply moving insights given by “non-medical” personnel or parents who had experienced the loss of a child.
ContextO Differences in: role general: ,
children's nurse, A+E, paramedicO Differences in SW role: Child
Protection/Palliative care/older people
O Nature of role: owning the role of protector, knowing the child/family, potential long periods of involvement
O Media image and response
Broadly Speaking...O I wanted to capture the "human"
lived experiences of social workersO The emotions, relationships, feelings,
etc. before, at the time of and after the child's death.
O Intended to use the findings to inform and develop several area of professional practice
MethodO IPAO 4 Semi-structured interviews with social workers
who have been directly involved in cases of FCA.O Recruitment strategy (did not work) (that's
another story) O All qualified SW'sO AnonymityO No rewardO Accounts transcribed and analysedO Developed into "Master" themes consisting of
areas of convergence and polarity
Master ThemesO Voices Unheard: Initial involvement
and assessment.O The Pain of Knowing: Feelings and
emotions upon hearing about the child's death
O The Blame Game: Experience of SCRs and Reviews
O N.F.A: Support and supervision post event
Voices UnheardO “We were picking up these concerns
about this woman, she seemed quite brittle, babies were fed, they were well dressed… but…not a great deal of warmth I thought, not a nurturing mum, I’m not happy, she comes across as cold and steely and I asked for another placement for my baby. I was told “no”.
The Pain of KnowingO "I got a phone call from my manager
to say I just thought I would let you know before you come into work tomorrow that Sarah is dead. Basically, mother’s partner had smashed the baby against the wall and his skull was broken…and that’s the circumstances of it."
The Pain of KnowingO I had a phone call from the service
manager and an email from the manager because they wanted to make sure I was ok, because it was horrendous, absolutely horrendous, he was just broken, he was just broken, he passed away...he died
The Pain of KnowingO When he (The Coroner) sat and read
out the child’s injuries, You know it’s a shame I wasn’t a drinker, I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to go, I didn’t want to go home, I didn’t want to “put on” my colleagues anymore. I just took the dog for an incredibly long walk and cried for a long time?
The Blame GameO Fascinating how the local authority
became a self -protecting tool to look after itself.
O They were talking about the way in which they could get themselves out of it rather than learning from it…Blame was pinned believe me, it was pinned.
O Blame culture in an LA is alive and well and thrives like the cockroach
Central ThemesO Disenfranchised GriefO The Personification of Systemic
Failure
Doka O The concept of disenfranchised grief
explores the psychological, organisation and cultural contexts in which grief occurs and examines how the “disenfranchisement” of the grief impacts upon individuals, social groups and the organisations in which they practice
DokaO the relationship (to the deceased) is
not recognized, O the loss is not acknowledged, O the griever is excluded from grieving
ritualsO the circumstances of the death and
the way individuals grieve
The Personification of Systemic Failure
O The interplay between intraneous factors, consisting of individual judgements, decisions and emotions associated with the event and extraneous factors, consisting of SCRs, managerial actions, the disenfranchisement of the social worker’s grief and media and political responses to the event, have impacted upon the workers involved in a predominantly negative way.
Thank You